Awakening
by Nutmegs Bread
Summary: Four hundred years is a terribly long time to be alive. A vignette.


**Awakening**

Awakening, he thinks, feels like snapping out of one nightmare, only to fall into the unforgiving, inescapable grip of another.

Four hundred years is a terribly long time to be alive.

Against all of his expectations, the all-consuming horror when faced with the aftermath of his destruction has, eventually, begun to dull. The pain that once threatened to rip him apart has become a twingeing, almost bearable ache. Even the hysterical breakdowns have now dissolved into a quiet and resigned sorrow.

The guilt, however, never leaves. Instead, it saturates into a perpetual, insurmountable weight that somehow manages to become heavier with each day he lives still, until he feels that it alone must be enough to crush his existence.

But it never does. It is merely capable of driving deeper, and deeper, and deeper, like a stake, more than enough to bleed but never quite as deep as he wants it to be.

Still, he lives.

* * *

><p>Sleep comes uneasily in tiny trickles, with no promise of rest or peace.<p>

It is the closest feeling he can get to the complete void of death. Yet he does not welcome it. Even unconscious, he is capable of wreaking devastation. The only difference is not knowing if he will open his eyes to see a changed world.

There will be days when he feels safe, however temporarily. Day when the grass is soft beneath his weight and the wind is gentle upon his face. Days so beautiful it _hurts_, but it is a good kind of hurt that allows him to close his eyes and drift away, if only for a moment, with something only akin to hope coursing through him, because nothing has happened yet and maybe, just maybe, nothing will.

He will wake to find himself the epicenter of a wasteland, the ensemble of chirping and rustling in the woodlands long replaced by haunting silence. He will not know when it happens. Nor is he certain how much of the it exists only in his dreams.

Four hundred years since he has run and hidden. Four hundred years with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. No way out.

This is no way to live.

* * *

><p>At some point he develops the habit – saying that name over and over again, sometimes even talking to it, even though he can never be quite sure of the responses, not the way he is familiar with <em>hers<em>. He thinks it is not so much an obsession as it is a ritual. Something solid he can retreat to, fall back upon in the worst of times.

A constant. A mantra. A reassuring sound that whispers gentle promises of escape, of mercy and acceptance. The crushing weight does not leave, but it becomes a little easier to breathe.

Centuries of waiting, each day that he yet breathes one too long. How much longer now? It matters not. Eventually, the moment will come.

It may be delayed, but with each passing moment it becomes nearer still.

The thought is tremendously invigorating. He says the name once more. Miraculously, a smile finds its way to his lips.

_I wish to see you soon._

The deadened land shudders near imperceptibly, and a visceral pressure appears on the back of his mind.

He knows she is there, the way he knows with certainty that darkness must descend in the night and fade in the day. The knowledge is there, but it is not something he thinks of with deliberation.

Her cool gaze pierces through him. It bears neither hatred nor affection, yet the familiarity is oddly comforting.

She watches on from a distance, silent and solemn. They do not converse tonight. The night is still and windless, yet the air shifts tremulously, just once, almost like a physical sigh.

And then, she is gone.

* * *

><p>Four hundred years is a terribly long time to be alive. Still, he lives.<p>

He should loathe death, now that he knows to appreciate life.

Yet how he yearns the former and loathes the latter.

Death is a horrendous thing. It is a black hole that leeches on every light in its proximity. It leaves pain and fear and despair in its wake, for what little that remains intact from its touch.

It is also the light above this vortex of bleak existence, the only way out that ends all misery and sufferings.

As he looks into the eyes of whom he has so desperately wished to meet, he sees, with startling clarity, what he should have realised long ago.

That death too can be a bringer of hope and joy, and that for once, the moment preceding it would be the sweetest in all of this accursed life.

For the briefest of moments he thinks he can feel its touch, but it does not last. He remains intact still.

No. _No._

This is not real. It cannot be. You promised me – _y__ou promised _–

_you promised a mercy an escape an end to THIS _–

* * *

><p>Perhaps this is to be his true punishment. Is it not cruel, to offer him a way out, then make him watch as his best and last hope crumbles right before his very eyes.<p>

Death is much too easy for the likes of him.

It is a much more fitting fate to live on, rejected by the world for the rest of all eternity, unable to stop destroying, unable to stop caring, unable to stop hurting.

* * *

><p>Four hundred years can change many things.<p>

Fury, when it comes, is a rushing torrent, an old friend eager for reunion.

They had a life, a chance. A choice.

Yet they cast away their chance without a thought. They forge an unending cycle of hatred, passed down from one era to the next. They spill the blood of innocents, so eagerly, when it is so very easy for them to live their lives without taking those of everything around them.

They manage to reap havoc and disaster in his name, even in his absence. Is it truly in their nature, to torment and destroy themselves so?

Four hundred years change many things.

Four hundred years are not enough. Some things do not – _cannot_ – change. Ever.

When he opens his eyes again, he is almost surprised by how easy it is to forget. Do centuries of struggle and pain count for nothing, in the face of stark reality?

Then he remembers.

How has he ever forgotten? The hardest part has never been forgetting at all.

* * *

><p>He shall destroy, not in fondness for it, but to cleanse the world of those that seek it.<p>

But the pain lingers. The weight haunts. Four hundred years is far too long to forget in a single moment.

The woman stands before him, reverent and victorious. How she manages to worship him with such condescension remains a mystery.

He calls to the power, but now that he needs it more than ever, it slips through his fingertips like water. He tries holding on to the rage with a fierce desperation, only to find it dissolving rapidly into an icy pit of dread and panic. He does not want to kill – no, he wants to, he _needs_ to want – if he lets her – all the innocents that died at his hands – hands that are, ironically, incapable of killing now – _STOP_ –

The last of his tenuous hold on consciousness slips away, and he is falling, falling, _falling_ –

Into the vast embrace of nothingness that had eluded him for so long.

They claim to be rousing him from his slumber, when in truth, he has never felt more slumberous since his awakening.

* * *

><p>Of all things in life, only death is eternal.<p>

Wealth is lost. Beauty is tarnished. Trust is betrayed. Hatred burns away, consuming everything in its path, but it does not last. Grief entraps and enslaves, spinning a web of despair, but it does not last. Even the greatest promises of love cannot hope to stand against the erosion of time.

Eventually, even the seemingly untouchable stars die out.

There is no such thing as forever – but for death.

In death may he find eternal peace.

Forever.

* * *

><p><em>181214181214311214<em>

**Fairy Tail is written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima.  
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**A/N: **I don't consider myself a fan of the series, having only watched a few of its episodes. This is just a little...something for nihilistic thoughts. Anyway, from what little I could understand – instant death radius be damned (bad idea...), this guy really needs a hug.


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